Dog Killed By Speeding Car On Brians Way

At the end of Tuesday, February 20th’s council meeting, vice mayor Kevin Johnson said that four residents from his district called him with concerns about the speeding on Brians Way.  Brians Way is close to Tremont elementary school and comes up to the north along Patwin Park.  Johnson asked for this issue to be put on the Transportation Advisory Committee’s (TAC) next agenda.

Although placing it on the TAC’s agenda may be a common procedure, residents of the area, with whom we spoke, believe that the council should put it directly on their agenda for discussion, since the next TAC meeting is not until April 17th.  The neighbors further believe that the “speeding issue” on Brians Way should be discussed by the council immediately to make the neighborhood safe for the residents and students around this area.  As whatever recommendation would be made by the TAC committee has to be approved by the council, it would make more sense for the council, in the interest of public safety, to act sooner than later.

According to the residents this issue has been on the City’s radar since the early 2000’s. Our investigation discovered that about a month ago a dog was killed by someone speeding on Brians Way. The speeder didn’t even have the courtesy to stop.  There were several eyewitnesses personally known and related to our staff.

One of the people that called councilman Johnson was told by him that “the first step is to get a traffic study done, and that would determine whether something is needed in the area to reduce speeding. But the study is somewhat expensive and would need to be approved.” Johnson claimed.  Another resident said that a car drove over his lawn! A few years ago, another speeding car ran over a lawn and hit a parked car.

Many newcomers to the new area use the side streets to go to Safeway Plaza because they don’t want to wait on a streetlight. But children residing in this area have limited safe streets to walk to Tremont school. With more students moving now from Anderson to Tremont because of the electrical repairs started after various problems arose at Anderson requiring the district to temporarily abandon this school site, it is believed that this will create more traffic including sidewalk use by young kids accessing Tremont Elementary.  Nine classes from Anderson are being transferred to this site.

As spring weather arrives, more people will be using and enjoying Patwin Park.  People are walking their dogs and mothers take their little ones in the stroller.  Who in the City will take responsibility if an unforeseen accident, by a speeder, happens?

We recommend that the city council take immediate action as a precaution to address this dangerous speeding problem.